


Sokka, champion of the world; and other stories

by kaberett



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Community: fic_promptly, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaberett/pseuds/kaberett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well <i>technically</i>," says Sokka, "we don't have a table, so it's not exactly <i>table</i> manners anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Original post](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/104424.html?thread=4850408#cmt4850408).

"Well _technically_ ," says Sokka, "we don't have a table, so it's not exactly _table_ manners anyway."

Toph belches, finishes picking her teeth, and tosses the bone into the fire. “I could make one if y'like,” she says.

Opposite, Katara glares at them both. “Sokka, don't encourage her. Toph, I _know_ you know better. Can't you at least _try_?”

“Katara,” says Aang tentatively, “is it really that big a deal?”

–- Their voices rise. At the edge of the clearing, Momo chitters quietly and fastidiously wipes down his ears. Appa methodically inhales another mouthful of tree.

 

 _(Och_ crivens _, mutter the bushes, not the tappin' o' the feets...)_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/102335.html?thread=4697791#cmt4697791).

"Nuh-uh," says Sokka. "You're on your own for this one. Sorry, buddy," he adds, as an afterthought.

"... excuse me?" quoth the Fire Lord, having grown manners in his old age.

"... but Sokka," says Katara, "what will we do without your superior detective skills?"

Sokka turns, stroking his beard. "Katara," he intones, "it's important that you don't try to rush me through recovery. You'll only prolong the process."

"Of all the excuses," splutters Katara --

"What," says Zuko, "is going on."

"Before your time, you know. I wouldn't expect you to understand," says Sokka airily. "Just some library-related trauma."


	3. Chapter 3

Zuko follows the echoes down the gallery until he finds Mai: steely, composed, perfectly elegant, and using Ozai's portrait for target practice. “I don't quite understand,” she says, conversationally, “why you don't just have them executed.”

It is definitely not a question.

Zuko slumps against a pillar and rubs his face. His robes are, somehow, perpetually, much more creased than Mai's. 

“I can't,” he replies wearily. “I'm supposed to be starting things over. I don't want to--”

“-- turn into your father. Yes. You've said.” (She's rolling her eyes. He can tell.) “Life would still be much easier if you killed them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not in fact fic_promptly, but following some wailing on IRC I was given the prompt: _Zuko(/Mai?), immediately postcanon, dealing with the shards of Ozai's regime in FN upper echelons._


	4. Chapter 4

This is what she hates most about Omashu: it is very much as though she is five again, or ten again, or in any case spending her mornings and her noons and her evenings being seen but not heard; being decorative; sitting still. It is the time before Azula and it is time without end.

Once again – once and forever? – it is Azula who is her means to escape: she swoops down, burning brightly, and she drives away the creeping shadows and casts Mai's life once more into sharp relief.

It is inevitable that Mai agrees with alacrity; and it is inevitable that she finds herself trapped once more within the cage of Azula's will, but – she consoles herself – here, at least, she can move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Because these wings are no longer wings to fly  
>  But merely vans to beat the air  
> The air which is now thoroughly small and dry  
> Smaller and dryer than the will  
> Teach us to care and not to care  
> Teach us to sit still._  
> (Ash-Wednesday, T S Eliot) 
> 
> http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/25795.html?thread=1200579&format=light#cmt1200579
> 
> This does not quite fit the prompt, but gave shape to something I had been struggling to put into words, so.


	5. Chapter 5

Sokka doesn't realise how much he's forgotten until their firstborn arrives - until he hears Suki's songs and the stories she tells, a small squat bundle of baby in her arms or on her knee.

He's great at throwing the kid in the air; burping; even the toiletry disasters; but in this green land he finds himself bereft.

So: a scrawled note to Katara; painstaking care over the letters to his father and grandmother. Come autumn, first frost below and fresh snow on the peaks, his family arrives. By the fire, baby in his lap, he learns - that he might teach in turn.


	6. In the silence of their grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Matt, whereever I may find him; for Heather; and, at a greater distance, for Harry and for Keris and for Logan and for Grossmutti.

Azula dies young, and Ursa's heart breaks anew along the fractures she has painstakingly patched and repatched.

Mai is furious.

Mai is furious about death; furious about the inevitable state funeral; furious that she is expected to care, when Azula expected her to kill without a qualm; furious about the power Azula has always had – still has, it seems – over her; and furious, most of all, that _she_ expects herself to care, to grieve.

She sits still and quiet and bolt upright, her terrified children on either side of her.

Zuko reads the rites softly, with perfect control.


End file.
